What Gives?

LETTERS FROM READERS

May 24, 2000

THE BIBLE is often redefined. The Constitution is regularly questioned. The president's judgment is usually put under intense scrutiny. But somehow Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan's decrees are never scrutinized or questioned.

I find that shocking and outrageous. Somehow, with a few vague utterances, Greenspan can send the stock markets into a nose dive from Hong Kong to New York. And he can raise interest rates, effectively shattering the hopes of tens of thousands of people to own homes and get loans.

Is our "greatest economic expansion in 30 years" somehow bad for us, and we need Greenspan to chisel at its seams? Is he trying to tell us that we shouldn't have it that well?

No one seems to know what Greenspan is getting at. Is it that he's trying to get more people unemployed because low unemployment is a bad thing?

I would venture to say that if unacceptable inflation were to occur, the market pressures would control it; people would probably spend less.

I'm getting sick and tired of hearing on the news the great contradiction: On one hand, the economy is so strong and people are more prosperous than ever before. On the other hand, the economic outlook is so uncertain and unpredictable that market and financial volatility is here to stay.